A receiver, such as a Digital Video Broadcasting-Terrestrial (DVB-T) or Digital Video Broadcasting-Handheld (DVB-H) receiver, must synchronize any broadcast bitstream it receives. While the timing and frequency synchronization time for the receiver's demodulator may take, in some instances, twelve orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) symbols or less, the frame synchronization required before decoding may take as much as one superframe for a DVB-T or DVB-H receiver. Each superframe may consist of 4 frames, each frame having 68 OFDM symbols. This delay may lead to long latency and poor product performance. Thus, a shortened synchronization time is often advantageous. A shortened synchronization time may be particularly advantageous for receivers, such as a DVB-H receiver, which implement time slicing. Time slicing allows a receiver to save battery power by processing part of the received signal that contains wanted data. In other words, such receivers turn off when not in use. However, when the receiver is powered back on, the receiver must again synchronize to the transmitting signal, using power during the synchronization process.
Data synchronization may require multiple synchronization steps. For example, synchronization may be necessary before (1) symbol interleaving, (2) decoding a data packet (e.g., Reed Solomon (RS) packet), and (3) descrambling data. Traditional centralized frame synchronization may start channel decoding in the beginning of a superframe. However, a long delay may occur while waiting for the beginning of a superframe. Traditionally, the beginning of a superframe is a synchronization point for both symbol (e.g., OFDM symbol) interleaving and RS decoding. If the beginning of the superframe is missed, latency may occur because the next synchronization point would not occur for up to 273 OFDM symbols (i.e., 4 frames) or after 243.712 ms for an 8K FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) mode. Again, this potential latency may lead to poor product performance.